Ngmoco picks up $25 million in funding, buys Freeverse

They do it because of pirates.

Im another person that used to think Ngmoco was a sign of a quality game. I loved both Rolando games.
But since Eliminate showed me how this new model works, and then finding that games like Rolando are getting canceled, Im not interested in this company any more. I dont like it when I dont know how much something is going to cost me.

What was wrong with how desktop software has done it for years? Free version with limited levels, and in app purchase and you have the rest of the game! I want good games at a fair price, not to feel ripped off!

The problem is that it isn't "pay as you go," it's "get the app free and if you need x—which you do need—you'll have to pay $5, and if you need Y—which you also probably need—you'll have to pay another $5." So now this "free" game is actually ten dollars. There are a lot of companies that do this and can take a $50 piece of software and essentially charge $300 because you actually end up needing the things that they will unlock for a fee.

In other words, these products are not free at all, or even reasonably priced... this stuff could be called "unlockware," and it will cost you much more than a straightforward purchase would.

Used to like NGMOCO. I don't anymore. I used to really support Freeverse, but this move makes me sad. Unlockware is evil.

This is a sad day. I have been a big of Freeverse's for a long time, and to see them get bought out is an end of an era in many ways. I would not be shocked if they shut down or significantly downsize the Mac games and applications development dept. for good.

I like ngmoco's games, but Freeverse's business model. It should be interesting to see how this all turns out...

I don't quite get the pay-as-you-go hate, seeing that it appears that the iPad is completely designed where almost every piece of content is going to be pay-as-you-go or monthly fees.

You want to read the NYT or Time? Get a monthly subscription.

Want 3g for a day? Well, pay for a month's worth.

You can't run hulu natively on an iPad? Heck, NBC is probably happy about that, now that they have an excuse to be charging a monthly fee or on an episodic basis.

Why did all those 99 cent bikini apps disappear? Because "someone" would rather you pay a monthly service fee to Playboy or Maxim or whoever to look at women in bikinis.

Actually, it will be very interesting to see what happens when this thing is actually released, given that, aside from e-books, almost all of the things that these media companies are expecting to be charging for are generally available for free through Safari (aside from the whole flash thing). At some point, some of these media companies are going to have to "break" their webpages on the iPad to attempt to drive sales of an app.

Sure, some of the more tech-y guys, like "Wired" (or ESPN) will create special app versions of their content that will make if worth your time to bypass their basic website. But, I doubt most of the old media groups want to ramp up to make their content all swoopy and lose control of their content to upstart presentation people; they just want re-package what they have because it's cheap and easy.

Wow, this news is huge. I didn't see this coming. Hopefully, bringing in some new talent to the company will stop this freemium nonsense ngmoco has recently embraced.

Ngmoco has lost their way and has become pure evil with their "pay to play" rape model.

I held this day in dread the moment that Apple announced in-game purchases. Some developers can not help themselves. Instead of selling an app for $4.99, that is worth $4.99, they try and rape their customers for $30 - $40.

I will refuse to buy anything from Ngmoco, and I reluctantly, and rarely, buy from developers who publish games with in-game purchases but I will never fall for the "pay to play" scam.

Hopefully Ngmoco's failure and subsequent demise will not be very far off!

So their straw-men of 90% piracy, followed by their straw-men of unsuccessful sales have fallen and their greed has been exposes.

Please people, do not from these jerks!!!